‘I’m not doing no fuckin’ deal.’ Chained hands lunged at the stills and swept them violently aside. They scattered.
‘Then you might as well put the gun in your mouth now.’ She stared down at the bowed head. He was confused, enraged. Resources to be tapped. ‘Who do you receive your orders from? Who commands the Forresters?’
* * *
‘Look for the signs, lady…’
They let the footage repeat, the three of them clustered silently in conference-formation near the central monitor. Fletcher Wood made notes in a pocket book, Krista peered intently and self-critically at her own performance, Kemp drank coffee and concentrated on thumbing a text-message into his handset. Around them, the office had endured a makeover – for the worse – cork boards, cabling and extra filing cabinets adding the clutter and ambience-deficit of a crisis centre. Cosmetic disorder overlaid on order. This was how task-forces functioned; this was how phoney wars were fought. It was preparation.
Wood blanked the screen with the remote and rose. ‘Hell hath no fury like Krista nailing it to a fascist.’
‘I’ll second that,’ Kemp came in, turning his chair from the screen.
Krista was less impressed. ‘Didn’t unsettle him as much as I wanted. But he let some loose rubble fall. Could be useful.’ Could be the start of building collapse. She cleared space on her desk and eased herself onto it. ‘Want to play artist, Fletch?’
The FBI man approached the trio of flip-charts, adjusted the easels into line, and rummaged for a marker pen. Clean sheets faced outwards, waiting to be spattered in the brainstorm. Black was entered as the heading for the left board, White on the right. Opposing armies, focal points, summarized in bold lettering, divided by emptiness. A no man’s land they would fill.
‘Two apparently hostile camps,’ Wood began. ‘Militant black, militant white. And they’re linked.’ He drew a double-ended arrow between the titles. ‘Symbiotic, mutually reliant, helping each other raise the tempo. The key is?’
‘South African,’ Krista and her ex-husband chimed.
‘Right.’ South African was inscribed along the length of the arrow crossing the central board. ‘It’s a theory, but we’ll keep it at the middle, return to it. Let’s look at section White.’ He drew a question mark. ‘Leadership structure unidentified, but we’ve got a name – Forresters.’ It too was added. ‘Big ambitions. Linked to the Highway 80 massacre and the shootings in DC in terms of scale, method and military background. They need funding, safe houses, training and weapons.’
‘All of which we can assume are internally resourced.’ Krista was leaning forward from her desktop vantage point.
‘Why?’
‘Because we’ve never heard of them, never seen them commit bank heists or fraud, at least not in their own name. And because our friend in San Quentin has admitted there’s a supreme commander somewhere in California.’
‘It’s where they’re strongest.’ Kemp drained his coffee. ‘My guess is he’s outside LA. Wouldn’t shit on his own stoop.’
‘He has to be rich, has to own properties.’
Wood was filling out the page. ‘So, we start searching. What about Black?’ He stepped to the left. ‘We can’t ignore Azania in the mix of extremists.’
‘You arguing he’s got a paramilitary wing?’ Krista asked.
‘Wouldn’t put it to a jury. But I’m not ruling it out. He’s in the constellation, the loop.’
‘I’ll second that,’ Kemp interjected. ‘The guys at Five noticed the Jamaican killer’s London operational profile changed the second Krista briefed the Reverend out here. He’s been treading water ever since.’
‘Coincidence or classic barium meal?’
‘The Box is keeping an open mind.’
‘Every step, every goddamn step, Azania’s gained. Every step, someone behind him dies. He avoided the Selma–Montgomery walk, and it gets strafed. He’s there in the Mall, and the other speakers get blown to pieces around him.’
Kemp grimaced. ‘The anointed one.’
‘Exactly. Personal following so huge, so committed, so ecstatic, you can’t accuse him. Prerogative of the minority. It’s powerful protection.’
‘It won’t stop LAPD pulling him in for the wet job on Professor Pitt.’ Krista was rifling among her notes. ‘Rumour is there’s prima facie and circumstantial pointing to his involvement.’
‘You swallow it?’
She shook her head. ‘As if. You’ve seen me on tape. Wire taps of the Reverend railing against the professor, a telephone call logged from Pitt to Union League HQ, a crackhead claiming he was paid by Azania to reconnoitre Pitt’s home in Woodland Hills, a few incriminating objects supposed to be in the holy man’s possession.’
‘And, of course, the words Union League written theatrically in blood at the crime scene.’ Kemp held up a Polaroid.
Wood took the proffered photograph and pinned it to the board. ‘Adds up.’
‘For the LAPD it does,’ Krista responded. ‘Epic mistake. One I guarantee Azania intends them to make. There’s enough to arrest and arraign him, enough holes to exonerate him at any stage.’
‘Particularly if he’s working publicity, hauled in his swing-dick lawyers. His reputation rises further, that of the police department plummets faster.’
‘Clever.’
‘Logical. Playing the martyr’s his speciality.’ Wood was adding furiously to the developing diagram. ‘He’s stirred up the ghettos, bought the poor, got them dancing to his beat, singing his hymn sheet. They’ll storm the barricades, hit the beaches, for him.’
‘Might come to that,’ Kemp observed.
‘It’ll happen the moment the cops move in. Meanwhile, the cops view it as an opportunity to whip negro ass.’
Krista murmured agreement. ‘They don’t even like blacks in Torrance after dark.’
‘So this case’ll tempt them. Remember their colleagues mown down in MacArthur Park? They do. And Azania’s holding himself out as the nigger in their woodpile. Welcome to nuclear fission meets OJ and Rodney King. Helluva mushroom cloud.’
‘LA won’t like it.’
